If 2025 has tested India’s bilateral skill, it has also highlighted the maturing of its role in multilateral and plurilateral arenas. Institutions that once appeared unchangeable now face pressure from within and without, as emerging economies demand a greater voice and as existing powers disagree among themselves on trade, climate and security. In this environment, India has tried to move from merely managing forums to shaping them, using its experience, credibility and convening power to argue for a more equitable global order.
This shift is most visible in three overlapping spheres: the G20 and other economic governance platforms; coalitions such as BRICS and smaller “minilateral” groupings; and the traditional multilateral system centred around the United Nations and its specialised agencies. Across all three, India’s diplomacy has been marked by a consistent emphasis on reform, inclusiveness and development‑centred outcomes.
Recasting the G20 from the Global South
The G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg in November 2025 served as the principal stage on which India’s new multilateral role played out. The summit unfolded under the shadow of a boycott by the United States, raising doubts about the forum’s continued centrality at a time of sharp geopolitical polarisation. Yet, rather than allowing the gathering to drift, New Delhi chose to treat the moment as an opportunity to push for a more genuinely representative and development‑oriented G20.
Building on the political capital accumulated during its own presidency in 2023, India worked closely with the South African hosts and a wide range of developing and developed partners to craft an agenda that foregrounded digital inclusion, debt sustainability, climate finance and fair access to critical technologies. Proposals such as an African‑focused technology integration initiative, modelled partly on India’s own experience with digital public infrastructure, and a compact on responsible artificial intelligence sought to ensure that the benefits of technological change are more evenly shared.
The Johannesburg Leaders’ Declaration, shaped in no small part by Indian inputs, reflected several of these priorities, including stronger language on reforming multilateral development banks, facilitating debt relief for vulnerable economies and integrating African development needs into the core of the G20’s work. In doing so, India helped prevent the summit from being overshadowed entirely by great‑power absenteeism and demonstrated that the G20 can still function as a central platform for economic governance when middle powers and developing countries step up.
BRICS and South–South Cooperation
If the G20 is a bridge between advanced and emerging economies, BRICS has become, in 2025, a more explicitly Global South‑oriented forum. Under Brazil’s chairship, the grouping expanded in membership and ambition, with the New Development Bank playing a more proactive role in financing infrastructure, energy and connectivity projects across member states.
India used the 2025 BRICS processes to push for concrete, development‑friendly reforms. These included a greater use of local currencies in intra‑BRICS trade, measures to support mutual recognition of professional qualifications to ease the mobility of skilled workers, and attention to supply‑chain vulnerabilities in critical minerals needed for the green transition. Discussions on calibrated steps towards reducing the over‑reliance on a single reserve currency were framed less as a challenge to existing systems and more as an effort to build resilience and choice for developing economies.
India’s approach within BRICS has combined pragmatism with ambition: using the platform to secure tangible gains in finance, technology and mobility while also positioning the grouping as a complement, rather than a rival, to existing financial institutions. As New Delhi prepares to assume the BRICS presidency in 2026, these 2025 initiatives provide a foundation for an agenda that could focus on digital public goods, skilling, and sustainable infrastructure for the wider Global South.
Minilateral Platforms and Issue‑Based Coalitions
Beyond formal multilateral organisations, India in 2025 has also leaned into a diverse ecosystem of minilateral and issue‑based coalitions. Groupings such as the Quad, I2U2, various Indo‑Pacific economic frameworks and regional dialogues with ASEAN have offered more nimble, practical avenues to address specific concerns—from maritime security and resilient supply chains to food security and clean energy.
These platforms share a preference for flexible geometry and functional cooperation over rigid treaty obligations. India has used them to pursue very concrete outcomes: improving maritime domain awareness in the Indo‑Pacific, fostering cooperation in green hydrogen and renewable energy, connecting food production centres with global markets, and strengthening its own technological base. This has allowed New Delhi to advance its interests alongside like‑minded partners without being drawn into alliance structures that would constrain its strategic autonomy.
Such minilateralism does not substitute for universal multilateral institutions, but it does allow coalitions of the willing to move ahead where consensus is difficult in larger forums. For India, it is a way of ensuring that its regional and sectoral priorities—whether in outer space governance, cyber norms or climate‑compatible infrastructure—are reflected in actual projects and standards.
Reimagining the UN and Global Governance
The United Nations system remains the formal core of global multilateralism, and 2025 has seen India redouble its efforts to argue for long‑overdue reforms. Successive Indian interventions have highlighted the mismatch between current representation in bodies such as the UN Security Council and the realities of a world where Asia, Africa and Latin America are central to economic and demographic trends.
Alongside partners in groupings such as the G4, India has renewed its call for an expanded and more representative Security Council, even as it has continued to be one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping operations. On issues like climate change, India has sought to hold the line on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, while also showcasing its own contributions in renewable energy deployment and sustainable lifestyles.
Specialised UN conferences and processes have offered additional arenas where India’s voice has been influential. Whether in discussions on the health of the oceans, on pandemic preparedness, or on digital governance, New Delhi has tried to bring to the table practical experiences from its own developmental journey—around digital identity, payments systems, pharmaceutical production, and large‑scale clean energy programmes. This has reinforced India’s image not just as a critic of existing global governance structures, but as a provider of solutions.
Future Pathways: Reform, Representation and Responsibility
Taken together, India’s multilateral and plurilateral engagements in 2025 suggest a country increasingly comfortable in the role of agenda‑setter rather than agenda‑taker. The emphasis has been on making global institutions work better for those who have historically had less voice in them, without abandoning the basic frameworks that underpin international cooperation.
Looking ahead, the challenge will be to sustain and deepen this role. India’s own economic performance, technological capabilities and domestic cohesion will strongly influence how much weight its proposals carry in global forums. At the same time, India will need to continue bridging divides—between North and South, East and West, markets and states—if it is to retain credibility as a trusted intermediary.
What 2025 has demonstrated is that India can speak with authenticity for the concerns of the Global South while also engaging constructively with advanced economies. In doing so, it has begun to give practical content to long‑standing ideas of a more just and representative international order. If this trajectory holds, India’s multilateral diplomacy in the coming decade could prove as consequential for the world as its bilateral partnerships have been for its own rise.
